After All These Years was recorded in producer's Norbert Putnam's 1875 mansion the Bennett House In Franklin, Tennessee.

"The Sailor", which had been left off its namesake album, features a harrowingly darker sound that hearkens back to Newbury's earlier work, "painted with broad strokes and with metaphorical allusions to heaven, hell, and earth.

"[2] For the most part, the songs contained on the LP speak to a longing for the old days, but with more optimism than on Newbury's Frisco Mabel Joy album, which explored the same theme.

[3] Newbury biographer Joe Ziemer contends "Let's Say Goodbye One More Time" and "That Was The Way It Was Then" are "sincere offerings of the heart of a card-carrying romantic.

"[4] AllMusic gave After All These Years four out of five stars, with reviewer Thom Jurek stating: "Somehow from the vastness of the sea expressed in the suite's first song to the individual sitting alone in a room at night staring at a clock, we find the spectrum of human regret and grief.